Four on the Floor – 1981.

 

Some would say an excellent year for rock music, but I happen to think it’s the year that the rot set in, these are still good albums however I believe the seeds of a new movement in the rock world was set in motion in this year, it may have taken seven or eight years to come to fruition but this was the edge of the precipice, read on and I’ll explain.

Blue Oyster Cult – Fire of Unknown Origin. – 9/10.

The last decent album for nearly Fifteen years, the next studio album The Revolution by Night was good but not great, but this was the pinnacle until Heaven Forbid came along in 1998. It was also the second and the last album produced by Martin Birch who always seemed to get the best out of bands, playing wise, song writing, bands seemed to step up to the plate for Martin, it’s also the last album of the original line up before Albert Bouchard had a hissy fit and buggered off, the songs (all 9 of them) are of a great standard and the artwork was something special, I remember having a shop display poster in my bedroom which took up most of one wall, after this it was the start of ever decreasing circles for the band they were and still are a great live band, but albums of quality were few and far between, they remain in my top three of bands that I love, but it was a slippery slope after this recording wise.

ACDC – For Those About to Rock.  6/10.

I know I’m going to get slaughtered for this but I do have my reasons, released a little over a year after back in Black, they then toured for the best part of a year and then jumped into the studio in the six weeks Mutt Lange had spare from all the other work he was doing in 1981 and the production for me suffers, as does the songwriting, maybe they should have had a little longer off, is it a bad album, hell no, it simply sounds tired, I saw the band on this tour and it was great and the songs that they played sounded so much better live than on the record, a couple of the songs are amongst my favourite Brian Johnson era ACDC songs, Lets get it up, Breaking the Rules and COD (Care of the Devil) I love, the rest were simply ok, again they remain a massive band but with the exception of Back in Black, I only like a couple of tracks from the rest of the later albums, they did start taking longer between albums and they are still one of the biggest bands in the world. but even Rick Rubin and Bruce Fairburn couldn’t save the albums that followed, they relied on their own abilities too much when in reality sometimes an outside set of eyes would have helped, to be honest the later albums didn’t have the sparkle of the Bon Scott era which every album was chock full of classics!

Foreigner – 4.   8/10.

Yet another Mutt Lange production from 1981, he was heading to a more polished sound to his production tasks, and to me again although Foreigner did some good albums after this, nothing that matched the quality of this, the album took 8 months of spit and polish to complete and there were many tears and tribulations along the way, was it worth it, I think so this album broke the band worldwide with the album breaking into the top twenty just about everywhere in the world and selling six million copies in the USA alone.

Van Halen – Fair Warning. 8.5/10.

As usual a short album a little ove31 minutes, but those 31 minutes are chock full of riffs and squeals, again I think this is the last great album of the original band , yes I enjoyed diver Down (basically a cover album) and 1984, again just over 30 minutes of mayhem but  the writing was on the wall as the band were going their separate ways, Eddie was wanting expand from the riffs and the talking type of singing ( hence when they became Van Hagar) I remember having a dodgy video of a gig in the USA from this tour, and they were simply awesome, the only issue for me on this album were the last two tracks, its like they needed something to fill the album up to the obligatory 30 minutes, and simply took two demoes that weren’t finished, but who cares when you hear the riff for Unchained kicks and everything else is forgiven.

So that’s my take on 1981, yes there were loads more classic albums, but I picked these because to me these bands were never the same after this, yes they remained big bands but in reality thrash was just around the corner and grunge was creeping up on the coattails, bands got rich and bloated in 1981 and the rot set in shortly after, please don’t send any death threats its just an opinion we all have them!

Sell your Soul

 

 

Over the years, employee expectations have changed as a result of the increased workload and stress in the workplace. When workers are fatigued, they are not as inclined to participate in the building of culture but more concerned about a manageable workload, wellness and realistic performance expectations.

The single most important thing employees want most is respect. The most powerful corporate culture initiative is a commitment to fairness, listening, identifying and caring for contributions, and caring for well-being.

There is an increasing practical perspective towards work among employees. They prioritize a job based on financial and personal requirements and not look for identity, purpose or community just from their employer.

Many organizations attract workers because they show, rather than tell, that they care. Often, it's more important to do the right thing, say the right words and behave in the right way than to conduct a well-executed culture campaign.

Excitement used to be created by providing free snacks, game rooms and casual Fridays. Most workers today consider these benefits to be less important than job security, purposeful work, flexibility and career prospects.

Staff listen attentively to leaders' decisions. Inadequate transparency, poor communication, or perceived unfairness can lead to lack of faith in management decision-making and discourage participation in other cultural programs.

Staff have a desire to learn, grow and progress in their work. In organizations where job growth is not clearly defined, it's hard to retain and motivate talented employees without a clear job progression plan.

Motivation is not something that can be done with words. But the number of employees who are assessing their companies' payouts is on the rise, and they're taking financial recognition as a more tangible measure of appreciation than slogans or employee branding.

Flexible work schedules and remote work opportunities have become more important to many workers than office amenities. The freedom to manage personal responsibilities and have work-life balance is more likely to influence satisfaction than culture-driven events.

People get bored when the values they hear about at work are inspiring, but the actions at work are not. If there are actions by leaders that are in contrast to the principles, trust is lost and employees are suspicious of actions or acts that look like performance rather than action.

In My Life.

I have to admit I have thought long and hard regarding doing this blog and it’s a kind of continuation from the blog “Girls”! that blog is my most read blog and I have had more than 25% of the readership asking for more details,  now the details I’m going to give might not be the details that some of you want as there will be nothing salacious, but I feel the need to at least tell the story of how she made such an impact on a young teenage boy that was to last, for a very very long time!

I met the young lady for the very first time in the first year of my senior year, to be honest it was nearly the end of our first senior year and our house (no it wasn’t Hogwarts) had won the house points table so we got to on a trip to Whitby, I had to my knowledge not noticed her before and yes I had noticed girls as I had gone out with a couple of them, but when I got on the bus for that trip I noticed the best looking girl in my year and to be honest I was totally gobsmacked by her, the trip was a fun day and the trip back was the first time that I actually spoke to her, nothing of any great importance, but we spoke.

Over the summer me and my best friend spent our time doing what boys did during summer holidays, fishing swimming generally doing what boys did and just occasionally I would see that girl where we were, we didn’t speak but I saw her and she definitely saw me, the holidays finished we went back to our school, but after the first year we transferred to the main school, further away for me, but closer for her, and soon we had the first school disco and all the boys sat around the hall gazing at our feet and the girls danced, by this time my friends had guessed that I liked the girl as I was tongue tied whenever she was close by, I chickened out and bolted, one of my friends simply walked up to her (mind you he had been in her junior school and knew her well) and simply stated “you like him he likes you so that should  make you two a couple” and she said yes! He then dragged me from my hiding place, and we actually spoke together for the first time!

I soon calmed down in her presence , and I do admit to feeling like I was the luckiest boy in the school, as she was way out of my league, I would walk to her house(which by road was a little over 3.5 miles, however in good weather I would cut across open country and get it down to under two) things went swimmingly, at least I thought so, a typical male I didn’t foresee any storm clouds on the horizon, at the time I was allegedly an angry little boy, and I don’t think that I was the most popular boy in the school although did try my best not to annoy people, I have a sneaking feeling I wasn’t always successful, my mouth had a tendency to work way quicker than my brain, at this point I was angry with myself not with other people (read some of the previous blogs you might get a hint) it seemed as though we were drifting apart, and sure enough we did split up, simply because of my insecurities, nothing new there then, and we drifted apart, we didn’t fall out with each other, we just went our separate ways, mainly because of me, I know it now and I knew it then. 

I have already described in a previous blog how we got back together so I won’t rehash it, but by this time I was a mess of real insecurity, I definitely had anger issues again towards myself, it turns out I scared her, I found this out much later and I have never been so unhappy about my actions in my life, at no point did I ever want to cause her pain suffering or unhappiness, but I was teenager who didn’t have a father figure and I certainly was starting to hate my (own) life,  our relationship ended after making plans to see her at the weekend and as I was walking to afternoon registration I got pulled by my history teacher who was trying to get me into the “O” level stream, again a blog for another day, the upshot was I was going to sit a mock O level paper on the Monday morning to prove I was capable. I asked someone (one of my friends…allegedly) to explain to her I wouldn’t be able to make it this weekend because of this exam the following Monday, the next break all hell broke lose with one of her friends telling with glee in her voice that she never wanted to see me ever again, I did try to speak to her but her friends blocked access at every step of the way, in reality I should have fought harder but this just proved that the world hated me with all of its might!

Now this is where it gets silly, the person who I asked to pass the message about the exam, went out with a girl who lived directly across the road from my now ex-girlfriend, and they had broken up so to twist the knife and to pay him back I went out with her, primarily so I could have an excuse to see my ex-girlfriend, childish I know, but I was a sultry teenager who should have been slapped across the back of my head and told to grow up (I didn’t and it would take a while before I did, some say I still haven’t) we went out for over year and in that time my ex-girlfriend went out with the older brother of one of her fiends (he definitely hated me) I was oblivious I simply wanted a chance to see her, my relationship with the girl across the road lasted a year it had the occasional bump in the road, the worst one which blew up as (allegedly) my ex-girlfriend had told her all the bad things about me to her and she threw it all in my face (I wish she had said it to me when we were going out , I don’t blame her for not doing so) and our relationship finally came crashing down when I came back from the army, at this point I hated life and everything and everybody in it, alcohol became and best friend and my worst enemy, when in reality I was and always had been my own master of my downfall.

I never saw her again at least to my knowledge, I am aware that she was in a pub one night over thirty years ago with friends and my brother said the immortal words of “don’t turn around now….but” unfortunately she was gone by the time I did turn around, I have never tried to find out how she has done, does she have kids, did she marry, does she still live in the area, I do know that she is the one regret in my life (hence the title of the blog and a well-known song) I would love to have a coffee and simply tell my side of the story as to what actually happened, and to return her Lene Lovich single that I borrowed so I could tape the B-side, I still have it and cherish it knowing that it was hers and not out of spite , I would willingly return it ,I would say sorry, because I feel the need to be contrite, however she did rip my heart out and go and bury it out on the moors never for it to be reclaimed. It took me a long while before I realised that, and I have to say just about every relationship since then has been guided by the harsh words spewed at me by her friend who lived across the road, as I hated the person who it described, however it was all obviously true as I dated simply see her!

Since my diagnosis of face blindness I wonder most days has she passed me by thinking that I’m ignorant, the girl across the road works as a health professional and came in at the end of an appointment that I had and said hello and I didn’t recognise her, not because I was being a twat, simply because I struggle to know who most people are in my life are! The only good thing that came out of the relationship was it gave me a foundation for love song lyrics that I put to bloody good use for four years while I was a lyricist, I would say 99% of those lyrics were for the girl who stole my heart, even if I didn’t know it at the time!

And there have it, the story as I remember it, I doubt she remembers it in the same light, if she remembers it all , it’s the only thing that I cherish from my teenage years and it’s the first real relationship I ever had, she was the best thing that happened to me and yes I know I screwed it up, so there you go a kind of historical blog just not musical, oh and by the way the mock exam that I was supposed to have that caused the whole ruckus, was cancelled on the morning of the test as the head of history hated my guts, definitely another blog for another day. So, if any of you know me and went to school with me and you know the person that I have written about, lets just leave it here she doesn’t need to know that for 45 years I have cursed the way we ended, I wish her nothing but happiness and I’m sorry I caused her so much pain because she didn’t deserve it!

Right Here Right Now – 9.

So where do we go from here, the blog for some reason has been getting phenomenal numbers, and I am no bloody wiser as to how or why?

My intention is to try and keep a semblance of order and balance and some kind of routine in place so as not to lose momentum, I have a little production line of late where I try to write a blog every two or three days and then pick a one to polish for it to go out into the big bad world, as I feel as if there is simply a process to keep the flow even as in the past where I have had low moods they have impacted just as my writing (or so I’m told ) has been making progress, by keeping a small pool of blogs simmering away so that I can, if needs be pull something together on a regular basis, I have discovered by doing this I am usually in a better place for writing, it’s a theory lets see if it actually works!

As always there’s a number of cunning plans, and one of them is to try and understand why certain blogs do better than others not that I want a template to simply copy the plan, I always write what’s in my head anyway, but if I can predict the better ones (even I don’t have a clue which ones they will be) there a couple that I have published of late that I am proud of, “Broken Promises” is probably the best piece of writing that I have attempted, I was happy with it from when the words went down the paper to the published effort, I don’t think It will be as good as that every time but its something to try and achieve.

I do have one coming very soon which will put the saga that started from the “Girls” blog in which I have decided to put an end to the story once and for all, after this blog there will be no more mention of it ever again so stop asking questions! I have received over 800 queries regarding that blog all of a similar theme, this will hopefully end that line of thought, if it doesn’t there will be some unhappy people when I tell them all to Foxtrot Oscar!

In the real world we have so much going on in our real life that its mind boggling, not all that will be blogged about, family is strictly off limits but needless to say that there is a lot going on, we are trying to sort the house out we had an issue with the upstairs lights that finally got resolved at a cost of £1800 yikes was all I said when I saw the bill, we have a couple of other things that we need to do but we will have to be careful with the pennies as we go along, the little doggie is costing an arm and leg but I don’t care as he is a little misery just like me, he’s old going blind and we think that there could an issue with dementia as sometimes he’s simply not all there, but as long as he’s not in pain we keep trying to keep doing our best for him.

We still have a large number of items in the house from the Kraken’s which either need to find a home or for them to go in the bin ( I keep promising to hire a skip) but our house has been upside down for nearly three years its time that we sort the stuff once and for all, I don’t want to throw anything of sentimental value but there needs to be a semblance of order, and I don’t want to fallout with the wife, I could do it in a weekend but it would be brutal and that’s not what I want!

What I do want is to lead a normal life since the epidemic we have barely moved out of the house, I miss the people we know, its nearly a year since we mingled with friends and we have been invited (ok so the wife was invited and I intend to tag along as always) to someone’s birthday party, we went last year (the last time we went out with people) and I am determined to make sure we attend this year, watch this space because will do a blog  about us interacting with real people ……woo hoo!

So there you have you now know all of the plans going forward, will the all come to fruition, of course not, will they change, more than likely but lets see what we can do so until the next one………Toodles!

Four on the Floor – 1980.

Queen – The Game.     8/10.

I will be honest I didn’t care for this album when it was released, I was stuck in the old ways, but over the years it has grown on me like fungus, there are still tracks that I don’t care for, but the tracks that I really like are great, lets start with the stinkers,  Coming Soon and Save me, Live save me works but it sounds flat on the album and coming soon sounds like a b side , or something that should have ended up on a Roger Taylor solo album, then there’s the singles Play the game nearly as bad as the first two songs mentioned, another one bites the dust , its got a groove and I do like a groove, and crazy little thing called what’s not to like its short its simple with a cracking guitar solo, then we get to the meat of the album, Dragon attack  just sticks to you like glue and live it was even better, sail a way sweet sister a simple Brian May ballad that could have appeared on any of their previous albums, Don’t try suicide Freddie having fun in a kind of accapela style which simply won’t let you go, Rock It this is not the best version but it’s still great, there’s a couple of versions with a full Freddie Vocal and one with a full Roger vocal, they spliced, Roger writes this kind of song in his sleep and he’s damn good at it, and the last track need your loving tonight John Deacon writing a simple rock song that actually works, he didn’t write many but he never wrote a bad song, I’m glad I stuck with it over the years its not as good as any of the first seven studio albums but it holds its ground.

Stiff Little Fingers – Nobody’s heroes.     8/10.

I loved this band when they came out this second album is the start of the polishing of their sound, still it had a nice bit of rawness to it and there’s only one track I don’t care for and that’s Bloody Dub, there’s nothing wrong with the track, but it’s the only song that I would skip and the track after goes just a little too long I like it, but a shorter version would have made me happy the track in question Doesn’t make it all right I think was written by Jerry Dammers of the Specials, good song but way too long for me, this was how I liked my punk in 1980!

Peter Gabriel – 3 (melt).    9.5/10.

At this moment in time, I wasn’t a huge fan of his the first couple of albums they were a tad eclectic for me, I was soon to learn the error of my ways as soon as I heard Intruder, I was hooked all of the songs the lyrics kind of grab you by the ear and demand that you listen to them, to try and understand the nuances of them, it was this album that turned me into wanting to be a lyricist, to be a writer of some sort,  there was always a number of different meanings and I just found it to be clever and so bloody different, there’s not a bad track on the album so why not a perfect ten, well the track Start the short instrumental is simply that a short interlude, now I wasn’t expecting a twelve minute epic with blazing guitar solos, maybe it was just that an interlude so that you could gather your senses before the onslaught of ideas that was to follow, I still can’t decide whether Intruder or Family Snapshot is my favourite song, the latter lyric is so devastating, I wont spoil it for you, but there are two stories over lapping and the end verse is just a plot twist of gargantuan proportions I love this and his fourth album but then I drifted from his catalogue as he went more poppy, I still listened but this album shook me to my foundations!

Ted Nugent – Scream Dream.      9/10.

I know I will get some stick for this one but this to me was the last great Ted Nugent album, its still my favourite, I rarely play it now as he has turned into a cartoon character, its his life he can do what he wants to, but its not for me anymore, he chased glory instead of sticking to his guns, some of this is so raw it would make a Motorhead song sound  like Journey (honest) Flesh and blood was the single from the album and its like a bloody big train just running you over over and over again, there’s the outrageous Wango Tango still his best moment the ZZ Top inspired Terminus Eldorado and who does not like the ballad (not) of Violent Love, he never matched the heights after this again, he came close with Crave man, but then he became the overlord, he always had great singers on his first albums with Ted only singing a couple, after Scream Dream he sang everything and the quality suffered he can still do it live as I have seen him a number of times in this country and the good old USofA  but the cartoon has destroyed the master that he was.

Fool’s Gold.

So I travel everywhere by bus, yes I am that person, a bus wan**r, I only ever sit my butt in a car and that’s when the wife has to pick me up or whatever we get to do as a pair, by and large I have a tendency to get the same bus into work 06.00 to the nearest metropolitan space and then another to my place of work, every now and then I might go in on the 07.00 bus it takes me to the same destination however it does go a slightly different route, on that particular bus there’s a young lady (early twenties) who gets on with her mobile phone glued to her hand. Occasionally she sits in front of me I have noticed that she is playing on line gambling, not just occasionally but all the time, she must win at some point because for that forty minute bus ride she plays non stop she was doing as the bus pulls up and was playing as she got off the bus, not taking any notice of the people or the world around her!

I have seen the same person in the Tesco’s near the bus station buying scratch cards, yes, I said cards as in plural, and they aint cheap, so at some point she must be a winner. Now I don’t understand the logic of the people who do this, I’m not against anybody gambling I know I’m simply not very good at it, the only gambling I do is I occasionally do the lottery, and get wound up if I don’t win the entry fee back,  but to spend what seems to be every waking minute gambling  is well to be honest shocking.

I do have friends who gamble and they do seem to do quite well, as one explained he has good days and bad days, but by and large he is up in his stakes he might not win big but he has never lost, well not substantial amounts, the wife and I have a friend who had lost £4000 on the first day of a racing meeting and was a little down as he thought he would do better, this was a Friday night, “I’ll win over the course of the weekend” it was a bank holiday weekend and by the Monday he was up by £14000, WTF, my mind was blown I simply could not comprehend the thought process, like I say I’m unhappy if I put the lottery on and don’t win my tickets price back.

Now I have worked with some older people (this was when I was a teenager, I know a long time ago) and some of those people would literally bet on anything, one guy even bet his house and lost, his wife did  batter him after it happened, but she didn’t leave him, they were still together the last time I saw them (about twenty years ago) they seem to have a system, that’s most gamblers, my brain doesn’t seem to work the same way, sometimes I wish it did, but I know that I’m too much of a coward to even try.

Now what brought about this little missive, well this morning we had an amazon delivery and they never close the gate and it was banging away, I was working from home and I knew that the gate would distract me, so I did my duty to shut the gate who was walking up the road to the bus station, but the young lady from the bus and yes she had a handful of scratch cards in her hand and she was scratching away, its funny how you notice some people and you don’t know them, but they keep popping up in your life!

Yes, I know this is a short one but you can’t have and peace all of the time, yes the name game is in play this was the track I was playing when I first saw her on the bus all those years ago, I made an entry about the thought for a blog and after seeing her this morning, I dug out my notes and with the exception of this last paragraph have typed what my notes words in my notes, if your interested I’ve had those notes for over five years, sad I know, or maybe I was gambling that I might actually get a blog out of it, ha ha ha ha did you see what I did there, anyway, enjoy stay safe and stay alive, until the next one ……Toodles!

 

Oh, and by the way I am working on something special that will be arriving soon!

This Dog Don’t Hunt.

I’m not a very competitive person, I kind of never have been since I was a kid, allegedly if you come from a “broken home” god I hate that expression, Girls and I mean all girls become super competitive, boys either become super competitive or not as the case maybe,  well in my family group my brother became the super competitive person, and he still is and I kind of simply Bimble along, that’s not to say I didn’t have my moments but I do get less competitive as I get older, let me explain.

I played football for various teams, school and the boys brigade I wasn’t particularly good, but I had speed, I was an ok defender but not many could catch me, so I used that to my advantage, I was soon found out and by the time I was 15 I kind of wasn’t interested anymore, I used to have the odd kick about but it was once in a blue moon amongst friends although I had the chance I never joined another competitive team, I was a really good short distance sprinter and I destroyed the competition for five years, my last race at school I got beat for the first time and then basically lost interest, the only thing that I was super competitive about as a child was history, my favourite lesson at school, my lowest score in 5 years was 96% and nobody came even close to me in all that time at senior school, I was a sponge and I soaked it up, I could do a massive blog about my time at school for history as the head of the department hated me, but I got the last laugh, hey ho possibly another blog down the road.

After that I simply didn’t give a rats ass, if I got beat I got beat I shrugged my shoulders and moved on, I played against my brother in squash for six months, he gave up as I wasn’t a challenge, I never won a game, he refused to play me after that, he didn’t understand why I was simply happy to play but not win, it’s not that I don’t wish to succeed, but I do the best that I can on the day, I am good at certain things and I always work to the best of my ability, I have no desire to suck at anything, I always put my best foot forward, but as far as I’m concerned it is what it is!

I was ok at a lot of things but over the years with successive injuries I have kind of got worn down, and I have had quite a few injuries, I only have one rib left to damage and then I will have a full set, I have broke both legs twice, I have broke my collar bone twice, various bones in my feet, I have destroyed my rotator cuff in my right shoulder, I haven’t had it repaired so I kind of manage with it, I explained the numerous hits to the head as a younger person and the fallout regarding those hits in a previous blog,  my knees have been destroyed by twenty years of half marathons and only one full marathon (never ever again) and 35 years of working in a place where the floors didn’t give adequate support for your knees (solid concrete) I wore my supports and assorted PPE, but wear and tear catches up with you ( I don’t look bad for 92).

I am very happy to take part but don’t expect me to be competitive, at times I wish I was, but this old body is well worn out so the chances of me shinning in  that department have long gone. That also doesn’t mean that I won’t get super competitive if I have a point to prove, I like to think I’m a good father (I could do better and I always strive to be) I’m good at my job (I could do better and again I always give it my best) I like to think I’m a very good husband ( thankfully that’s due to the tutelage and help from my wife) but as always I probably could do better, at least I’m not as angry as I used to be.

Why have I written this blog , well today I do actually feel like a very old person, I dropped something on the floor and the noises that were escaping from me as I tried (thankfully successfully) to retrieve said item were disturbing to say the least, thankfully there was nobody else ( I hope) in the room to hear me, me being competitive and super fit well that ship has sailed, and if I am being truthful I really don’t care, having said that I am slightly competitive regarding the blog with the intention that each one does better than the last.

So, another one down and just some kind random thought that popped into my head as I travelled to work and thankfully I got the bones of it down in a note book I had to hand, that’s how mind works these days, thank you to the people who are still reading these missives as the numbers for this year have been fab, so keep watching the skies there will be more incoming soon, stay safe and stay alive until the next time….. Toodles!